When I got into the station, I found that Burgess had left the preliminary toxicology report on Peter Williams lying on my desk. I scanned the findings, looking for mention of alcohol or drugs. In fact, Peter had taken both. His blood/alcohol levels were high – 0.14 per cent, which, judging by his age and size, indicated up to six cans of lager. Certainly more than the one or two the boys had suggested. In addition to this, however, relatively high levels of cocaine were found.
I had just finished reading the report when my mobile rang. It was Joe McCready.
‘I got the tox report, sir,’ he said.
‘I know, Joe. I’ve got a copy here.’
‘He took cocaine.’
‘So it seems.’
‘We need to push those two boys again. I’m planning on bringing them in this evening.’
I checked my watch. I wanted to call with Elena McEvoy. I had not spoken to her since questioning Irvine about the Mass card. By the time I’d get that done, it would be late afternoon. Debbie’s comment to me during breakfast had made me wary of heading back down to Sligo and missing the kids’ bedtime yet again.
‘Would you mind putting it off to tomorrow?’ I asked. ‘I’d like to be there, if that’s OK. I’m also thinking of bringing a friend.’
McCready did not speak for a second, before replying, ‘Oh. OK.’
I sensed that he thought he was being sidelined. ‘We have a techie up here who is very good. I can’t see any of those kids suddenly folding and admitting to bringing drugs with them. But we might be able to nail one of them for taking and using Peter’s phone. If we have him on that, who knows what he’ll admit.’
‘That seems like a plan, sir,’ McCready said.
‘It’s still your case, Joe. I’m just helping out for Caroline.’
‘I was sorry to hear about her . . . what happened to her.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think she’s OK, though.’
‘I know,’ McCready said. ‘I called in with her this morning. She’s going out to her parents this afternoon, I believe.’
The more I spoke to McCready, the more I hoped Patterson would make good on his promise to organize a secondment.
I crossed the border in an unmarked car and drove out to Plumbridge to Elena McEvoy’s house. It took me several attempts and a number of wrong turns before I found the right cul-de-sac. I decided that rather than bring up the topic of the Mass card immediately, I would claim I was calling to arrange for the collection of Kielty’s bike. While I doubted Ms McEvoy would necessarily want to see the bike again, it was a valuable machine and, if she wanted to sell it, it could help her out financially for a few months. That done, I could broach the subject of the death threats her partner had received. While I had little doubt as to the veracity of her claim that Kielty had been threatened in the pub, Irvine’s reaction to my question about the Mass card suggested that she might not have been entirely honest – especially considering she had been unable to produce any evidence.
However, when I got to her house, I discovered that it was empty. I checked several of the windows, but the place was deserted; even the furniture had been removed from the front room.
The old woman next door, whom I had noticed on my first visit here, was standing at her window again, glaring over at me. I gestured to her, asking her to open the window, but she simply walked away from it with a scowl. I went to her front door and knocked. Almost immediately a voice called, ‘Who is it?’
‘I’m a police officer,’ I said, omitting to mention that my jurisdiction was on the other side of the border.
‘Let me see some ID,’ she called, flicking open the letter box.
I handed over my card and waited.
Sure enough, her voice, stronger than her appearance had suggested, snapped, ‘You don’t belong over here. You shouldn’t be here.’
‘I’m looking for Ms McEvoy next door,’ I said. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘She’s not there,’ the woman replied.
‘Can you open the door?’ I asked.
‘No,’ the woman replied. ‘You’re not even a proper policeman.’
I decided not to get into a discussion on the issue.
‘Do you know where she’s gone?’
‘Good riddance to them, I say. Nothing but trouble.’
‘So you don’t know where she is then?’ I asked, biting my tongue to keep from saying just the type of thing she’d expect from someone from my side of the border.
‘She packed her stuff. A van came and took her and that . . .
child
.’
‘What type of van?’ I asked, eager to keep her talking now that she had started.
‘White. From your side.’
‘Southern registration plates?’ I asked, to clarify.
‘Isn’t that what I said? A right dirty-looking thing it was too. That shiny paper on the back window. What do you call it?’
‘Foil?’
‘Aye, that shiny stuff. Hanging off the window.’
‘Do you mean it was peeling off?’ I asked, squatting down level with the letter box. A pair of angry eyes glared at me through the slot.
‘That’s what I said, isn’t it?’
‘Did you notice anything else?’
‘I’d have said if I did,’ she replied, before the flap snapped shut in my face.
That evening, I went home early, in time for dinner. Penny talked gaily with Debbie about school and her friends’ latest ‘boyfriends’. Shane sat beside me throughout our meal, leaning against me happily, and I realized how much I missed spending time with my family. Afterwards we took Frank for a walk, though he struggled a little on the path and tired easily. It struck me again that my family, even my dog, had grown older without my noticing. The intervening time was composed of moments I knew I had lost and could never reclaim.
I collected Josh Edwards from Letterkenny at 8.30 a.m. and headed down towards Sligo. On the way, I explained to him what I wanted him to do during the interviews with Peter Williams’s two camping partners. He seemed quite excited about being out of the station. After listening to him extolling the virtues of various gaming consoles I might want to buy for my children, I suspected that Edwards’s hobbies were unlikely to bring him into contact with people in general either.
We reached Sligo before ten. Rather than going directly to the station, I told Edwards I had a call to make. Caroline had got out of hospital and I knew she was staying with her parents. Edwards sat in the car while I went up to the house. Caroline’s father, John McCrudden, answered the door. He looked older than his years, no doubt as a result of the many recent traumas affecting his family. One of his eyes watered slightly while we spoke, and he continually rubbed at it with his index finger. He invited me in, closing the door behind me, before telling me that Caroline was resting upstairs. I suggested I call back later, but he insisted on my seeing her. She was awake, he said.
As I began to climb the stairs, he seemed to think of something and called me down towards him. Standing on the lowest step, looking up at me, he offered me his hand.
‘I’ve wanted to do what you did to Simon for fifteen years. You did a good thing, son.’
I took his comment without response. At least I knew now that Caroline would have heard about the incident too.
She was sitting up in bed when I went in. On the cabinet beside her stood a half full cup of tea and some toast crusts on a plate.
‘You’re being looked after,’ I said, nodding towards the remains of her breakfast.
She smiled mildly. ‘You went to Simon, I believe.’
‘Who told you?’ I sat on the edge of her bed. I noticed on her lap lay a pair of glasses. ‘I didn’t know you wore glasses,’ I added.
‘I don’t. I usually wear contacts.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ I repeated. ‘Isn’t that funny?’
‘So you went to Simon,’ she said again.
I glanced down at my hands, which were clasped in my lap. ‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘You know why, Caroline. I saw your phone. I know you were talking to him. It wasn’t hard to work out.’
She nodded, then lifted her glasses and began to fidget with them. ‘Am I supposed to be grateful?’
‘I didn’t do it for you,’ I said. ‘I did it because he’s a bully. I did it because people like him get away with their shit and nobody does anything about it.’
She listened but did not respond.
‘I half expected to be suspended by now, to be honest,’ I said. ‘Maybe he’s accepted it and has disappeared again.’
This time she shook her head. ‘He knows you’re waiting for him to do something. He’s got you now. He’ll decide when you get suspended. You’ve given him control. He’ll want to enjoy it for a while. But he’ll not let it drop.’
Our conversation lapsed into an uneasy silence again for a few moments. Then Caroline said, ‘He was right though, Ben. It was my fault that Peter died. I drove him to it.’
‘Caroline, the toxicology results have come back.’
She glanced at me, her face blanching. She swallowed dryly before speaking again. ‘Did they find anything?’
‘Peter had a high level of both alcohol and cocaine in his system. You didn’t drive him into anything.’
Caroline’s demeanour changed completely. She shifted in the bed, stopped playing with her glasses and instead put them on.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked.
‘Certain,’ I said. ‘Had he taken drugs before, that you know of?’
She shook her head. ‘I’d have known. I know the signs.’
‘We’re interviewing the other two kids who were with him that night. We’ll find out from them where it came from. If you want someone to blame for Peter’s death, blame the person who sold him cocaine.’
‘They’ll say nothing. Murphy’s a bad wee shite. The other one, Adam, is a good kid but he’s spineless. He’ll be too scared to grass up anyone. The two of them will deny everything.’
‘I have an idea on that,’ I said. ‘I wanted to run something past you. One of the kids must have taken Peter’s phone after he died. You got a text message from him on the Sunday night, telling you he was in Dublin. We know he had actually been dead since that morning. One of them must have lifted his phone and sent that message. If I can get one of them to admit to that, I was thinking of offering them a get-out from a charge of perverting the course of justice, on condition they tell us where the drugs came from. If you’re happy enough not to press charges.’
She considered the idea, angling her head slightly. Her glasses suited her, accentuated the sharp lines of her jaws and the prominence of her cheekbones. Finally she nodded her head curtly.
‘Find me whoever did this to Peter.’
‘I will,’ I said, getting up and leaning towards her.
She moved back from me slightly. ‘And as for Simon. I can fight my own battles.’
‘We all can do with some help sometimes, Caroline,’ I said, and kissed her lightly on the top of her head.
She reached up and put her arm around my neck, drawing my head level with hers. We hugged, awkwardly, for a second, then she let me go.
Edwards and I headed out to Sligo Garda station. McCready had already arranged an interview with the boys and their parents. The first to come in was Cahir Murphy, the more confident of the two on the night of Peter’s disappearance. His father accompanied him, though they had not chosen to bring a solicitor; McCready had told the boys that he simply needed them to clarify a few points about the circumstances surrounding Peter’s death.
‘It was an accident, I understand,’ Mr Murphy stated when they came into the interview room.
‘We’re still considering several possibilities,’ McCready said. ‘That is one of them.’
‘An accident or suicide. Either way, I don’t see how my boy can help you with anything.’
Cahir Murphy sat quietly beside his father. I could imagine the conversation they must have had on the way in. ‘
Just say nothing, son. Don’t you worry; I’ll not let them push you around. I know my rights
.’
‘This is Detective Inspector Benedict Devlin,’ McCready said. Only two officers at a time were permitted to conduct interviews, so Josh Edwards was sitting up in the canteen, waiting until he was needed.
‘Why is he here?’ Mr Murphy asked.
‘He’s a friend of Peter’s mum,’ Cahir Murphy told his father. ‘He was there the night of the search.’
‘So this is a personal inquiry, is it?’ Mr Murphy asked.
‘I’m assisting Garda McCready with his investigation, Mr Murphy,’ I explained, then turned to his son. ‘Cahir, do you want a smoke before we start?’
Cahir Murphy blushed and dipped his head slightly.
‘My son doesn’t smoke,’ his father said.
‘I think there are a few things that might surprise you, Mr Murphy. Perhaps you’d like to explain to us what happened the night Peter died, Cahir.’
‘I’ve told you already,’ Cahir scowled. ‘He went to go to the toilet and didn’t come back.’
‘He’d been drinking. Isn’t that right?’
‘You already know this.’